California, is set to outlaw ... gold prospecting

[Minstrel]

California, the state built on gold prospecting, is set to outlaw ... gold prospecting



There's gold in them thar hills, but pretty soon you won't be allowed to touch it.

In California, the state built on gold, the time is up for prospectors who are about to see their way of life declared illegal.

Just 162 years after history's biggest gold rush, diggers - or dredgers as they now are - are losing a long-running battle with environmentalists.



The reason for this mammoth fight is ... salmon.

At the center of the battle is suction dredging, today's mechanized version of gold panning.

Up to 4,000 people in California use suction dredging to extract gold.

It involves motorized rigs which act like giant vacuum cleaners, sucking up mud and gravel from the bottom of a watercourse and then using gravity to sort tiny quantities of gold from the rocks and dirt.

Environmentalists say the technique disturbs riverbeds where fish such as pacific salmon lay their eggs.



The salmon population has fallen steeply in the Golden State.

The environmentalists also say the dredging releases poisonous mercury into the water.

They persuaded California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to agree to a two-year moratorium on suction dredging in 2009 while scientists compile an impact report.

The 800-page report has been finished at a cost of $1.5million.

It recommends that the dredging can carry on, but under a strict set of conditions dictating the size of the machines and when they can be used.

It says that dredging should be banned in some ecologically important rivers and streams.



The report's findings are due to come into effect in six months.

But opponents of dredging, with the help of Democratic state assemblyman Jared Huffman, have managed to amend California's proposed budget in a way that will extend the moratorium for at least five years, and maybe forever.

A paragraph in the document was changed to ensure that the Department of Fish and Game cannot spend any money reissuing dredging licenses until 2017.

People in the gold business are not too happy about the amendment.

Rachel Dunn, an amateur prospector who runs Gold Pan California in Sacramento, said: 'It's crazy. It's a circumvention of due process, in which a cheap political maneuver has been used to circumvent science.



'They should be ashamed. Gold is the industry that built California. What they are doing is just total lunacy.'

Gold prices are currently at a record high of more than $1,500 an ounce.

With California's unemployment rate at ten per cent, critics say the state cannot afford to criminalize potentially lucrative industry.

Many communities in remote areas rely on income from the prospectors who visit each year, the Independent on Sunday reports.

Bruce Johnson, who owns a campground in Seiad Valley in the heart of gold country, said: 'We are holding on for dear life out here and the gold miners could immediately help ease the burden. Is the legislation intentionally dysfunctional?'

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[TheRandyMan]

Any state that continues to vote in politicians that push agendas to make people more dependent on the state rather than on themselves...deserve what they get. It is a shame that such a beautiful state like California has been reduced to this point.

[Hefty1]

And this could, might, possible, may, get a whole lot worse than you could imagine. ain10
No more talking, action speaks louder than words.

[russau]

HUMMM ? California wants to superced federal law and my Congressionally given RIGHT to prospect/mine for nobal metals? sounds like my Constitutional rights have been,or will be violated!!! maybe we can take them to court and sue them for the .03 cents they have left in their bank account! when will the good people of california realize that these socalled "representatives" represent ONLY "their" party and NOT the people that they were voted into office todo? it seems this is a violation of their oath they took as they swore into office! if this goes into effect, is there ANYTHING else for them to take away from the people before everyone leaves California?

[2cmorau]

http://www.westernminingalliance.org/

[russau]

http://www.westernminingalliance.org/

unless a person really dont care about their rights at all,they need to support PLP and the Western Mining Alliance! without them, we dont stand a chance!

[TheHarleyMan2]

Ever notice how pretty much all the laws that came into effect or passed started out in California? Like the emissions for cars, manufacturing plants, environment stuff like fertilizers, water quality, etc. If you research it you can certainly bet it all started in California!

Maybe we should get some folks together and reclaim California and ship those idiots in office along with the illegals send them all back to Mexico!

After all the government and their left wing cronies is the BIGGEST pollutionist than 4 countries combined! You don't see anyone fining them or shutting them down do you?

[russau]

todo this, the public must be informed of the truth and show them their lies or itll never get done!

[Klondikeike]

Klondike here...

I was fortunate to have done the majority of my mining in California during a time when the regulations were no so bad... and I did well...

Since retiring from mining a couple of years ago.. I came to Texas to learn and work in the oil industry...While this isn't about gold..it shows how politically charged emotions can sway any issue one way or another...DEPENDING on what the desired special interest outcome is wanted...wether it is in California or Texas...

The people of California would cry faul if they saw the way ALL CONTAMINATED PROTROLUM BASED fluids are disposed of here in Texas...

It starts with a large ..or several large open pits dug into the ground... NO PROTECTIVE LINING of any sort or kind...... just a big level bottom and about 4 feet deep earthen pit... We back our tankers to the edge of the pits, open the valves and dump the OIL and/or all OIL based fluids into these pits... which are sometimes located VERY near residential sub-divisions...

There are NO provisions to "PROTECT" the environment of any kind.......as would be needed in California... and the amazing thing is..after about 2 months of the OIL based fluids standing still inside these pits.. it becomes hard enough to drive a D6 cat over and it is turned a few times with a standard discing tool. much like a farmer would use to turn over a field of crops... about another 3 months later.. the pool of OIL is now just dirt...it's no longer has the black color... it is a powdery light brown color...and is used for fertalizer and other uses.... and once the pit is emptied.. it is reused for another batch of contamenated oil products.. but now it is slightly deeper than when first dug... and over and over these pits are used to dispose of contamenated oil products...

Can you imagine the people of California allowing this to happen.. I doubt it... The people of California who have any common sense need to rise up and take the state back from the politicians who serve ONLY the special interest groups under the guise of service the people.......

It has always amazed me, once I learned how this disposal process works, tht something reguarded as being so damaging to the environment...as oil is reguarded... can be handled in such a simple and unprotected way...

I vowed NEVER to mine again in California nearly 15 years ago...a good move on my part but a loss for california of all funds that would have been injected into the local economies...

Why do you think that Phoenix and Reno and other western stae cities have grown so fast and as much in the last 10 years...it's all due to how hard it is to do business in California....the land of the fruits and nuts...guided by special interest groups...

Klondike...

[2cmorau]

well said klondike

i have always said Crude oil is organic

Welfare doesn't work, Tax payers do

[calisdad]

Its not about salmon its about water. Last month the pumping stations killed 40,000 salmon and 6,000,000 split tail and as yet no fine has been levied. When is the last time a salmon was sucked up by gold sluice?

You can probably do more to save recreational mining in California by boycotting almonds than you can by badmouthing the state as a whole.

[Jack Hamilton]

More like..... California....LED BY fruits and nuts...RUN by special interest groups...

[GrayCloud]

Keep in mind, there are two California's. Unfortunately the bad one has control of the government.
I would love to get lost in the high country in the Northern parts of the state, if the dang socialist environmentalist would leave me alone.

[Seamuss]

The state is trumping the 1872 mining law(federal law). I envite you to check this out for yourself and not take my word for it.
This sounds like a dare.

[Armchair prospector]

You can smoke pot and even grow it, but you can't dredge or use more than hands and pans in some state recreation areas. It's not about fish or water, it's about jealousy. Class warfare, the left doesn't like you working and making money if someone else is not.

[russau]

The state is trumping the 1872 mining law(federal law). I envite to check this out for yourself and not take my word for it.
This sounds like a dare.

oh its comeing! you can bet on that! i hope that all of this is resolved before the guns come out!

[calisdad]

You can smoke pot and even grow it, but you can't dredge or use more than hands and pans in some state recreation areas. It's not about fish or water, it's about jealousy. Class warfare, the left doesn't like you working and making money if someone else is not.

Although I don't agree with your conclusions you raise a good point. How can the state pick and choose which federal laws they want to abide by?

[russau]

well if it gets into California law, id hated tobe the first one cited/arrested for it,but it will bring about a federal lawsuit (VERY COSTLY) on a violation of your Constitutional rights and eventually end up in federal court if you have enough $$$ to get there. UNLESS you have a groups or groups that will back you for the good of all.i think if this does come tobe, itll break californias dirty grasp on mining and force the scumbags out of office!

[Hefty1]

Yea and the public defenders are just to stupid to help, and the fact that they get their paycheck from the same.

[Gold_Striker]

By virtue of being freemen on the land, laws only work as far as we the people consent. If we do not consent then we are removed from its jurisdiction and so can no longer be compelled to follow it. These laws only pertain to persons (corporations) and not men.

All of our rights are still intact if we only understood how we have been tricked into giving them up then we could reclaim them.

That land belongs to the people and not to a government.

Gold_Striker(not a lawyer)